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I only have one little jalapeno plant, but it has kept me busy making salsa.

As I have mentioned in some of my earlier posts, I am a sort of a hapless gardener. I’ve been at it for about a year and a half, and in the beginning I even killed squash. I thought anybody could grow squash. Now I’m kind of hit or miss, but I have found that peppers seem to be pretty much Laurie-proof. I have a randomly planted collection of bells, hot bananas and jalapenos that just keep growing and going. Now I’m starting to wonder about the bell peppers. Maybe I should ask somebody about whether the plants are supposed to get as big as trees. I was sort of envisioning large-houseplant-sized units that would give me a few peppers over the summer and then die so I could plant pumpkins. Now I have a small pepper orchard. Not that I’m complaining.

I only have one jalapeno plant, but it is very energetic. Lately we’ve been eating lots of fresh salsa, which is a healthy snack, except that it goes on chips, which aren’t so much. We like Archer Farms Blue Corn Tortilla Chips with Flaxseed. Organic, whole grain, a little flax, not bad on sodium. We do what we can.

The great thing about salsa, besides being healthy, is that even if you start with a recipe, it’s almost impossible not to make it your own. And even if you end up with something different every time, it’s probably going to be good.

Speaking of variations, here’s a link to a recipe for Mango Salsa that I make whenever there is an occasion for mango salsa, such as fish tacos, grilled fish or grilled chicken. It’s good on chips, and I’ve learned that if you give me access to mango salsa and whole wheat Ritz crackers, someone will need to plan an intervention. My secret weapon for making this chunky salsa is my Genius Nicer Dicer, which quickly makes perfect diced mango and bell peppers, and has a smaller size that’s great for the jalapenos. In fact, it’s worth the price of this tool just to avoid dealing with onions and peppers.

Quarter tomatoes and roughly chop cilantro, onions and peppers. Combine with remaining ingredients in the bowl of a large food processor. Pulse to desired consistency. (I don’t recommend a blender; the salsa will emulsify and turn beige. Tastes the same, just not pretty.)

If this Woody Allen quote is true, then God has been having a jolly old time for the last six years watching me trying to raise a child whose diet in any way resembles the healthy way his father and I eat.

Things have not gone according to plan. The plan was that I would eat lots of fruits and vegetables while I was pregnant, introduce him to as many healthy foods as possible while he was an infant and by the time he was a toddler we’d happily gather around the table each night to feast on vegetables, whole grains and lean protein.

The reality was that by the time he was four I resorted to bribery. I hung a big yellow posterboard in the kitchen, upon which I’d drawn little pictures of all kinds of produce. I bought stickers that had stars or “Good Job!” on them. I’d read that it could take 10 exposures for a child to accept a vegetable, so the deal was that each time he tried an item he’d get a sticker, and when he had 10 stickers next to one fruit or vegetable, he’d get a prize. I kept that poster on the wall for nearly two years, and in that time we awarded two prizes, for apples (with caramel dip) and bananas (with chocolate syrup and marshmallows).

Sweet potato chips cool after being baked at 200 degrees for 50 minutes, turned over and then baked another 30-40 minutes.

I haven’t given up. I’m still constantly asking him to try new things, though I have also resorted to “Deceptively Delicious”-style tactics of hiding fruit and vegetable purees in kid-friendly foods such as mac and cheese. This is very high-maintenance, so I’ll be glad when he’ll just eat steamed broccoli like everyone else.

Lately I’ve been on a snack food attack, looking for ways to minimize the number of chemical ingredients in the lunchbox and even sneak in some vegetables if possible. I got lucky in the health food aisle one day when Trevor said he’d try Terra Spiced Sweet Potato Chips and Sweets & Beets. The ingredient lists on each were simple: Sweet potatoes, oil and some seasonings for the spiced chips; sweet potatoes, beets and oil for the Sweets & Beets. The oils listed were canola and/or sunflower and safflower oil. Turns out, it is apparently possible to manufacture food without corn syrup or hydrogenated fats! Amazing!

The chips barely made it through the night at our house, though partly because my husband is a big fan of sweet potatoes, at least in chip and french-fry form. We love Alexia Spicy Sweet Potato fries.

When I have time I’ll make spicy sweet potato fries myself because it’s cheaper. The sweet potato chips weren’t the cheapest thing in the store either, so if my family liked them that much, I thought I would try to make them myself.

I decided to try baked chips first, since that’s obviously healthier than frying. I settled on Martha Stewart’s recipe. It involved slicing the potatoes thinly using a mandoline, spreading them on parchment-covered baking sheets and baking them in a 200-degree oven, then allowing them to cool.

Since I don't own a deep fryer, I fried my sweet potato chips in a saucepan using a digital thermometer to keep the oil at 350 degrees.

I followed the instructions, and until the cooling part they looked pretty much like the store-bought chips. But after cooling they were still soft in the middle. I’m not going to blame the recipe here; I live in Florida, which for baking purposes would be ranked just under rain forest in humidity levels. I popped the chips back into the oven for another 10 minutes or so (I confess, at 400 degrees, because that was the temperature the oven was on when I was cooking dinner), then left them to dry again.

Throughout the process, my son kept asking if he could try one, so when they were finally cooled a second time I gave him one to try. He put it in his mouth and gave me the wide-eyed, open-mouthed, squishy-faced “yuck!” expression. “It’s hard!” he told me before asking if he could spit the chip into the trash.

He was right, to some extent. It wasn’t a potato chip texture; it was more the texture of those dried banana chips that you get in trail mix. Not inedible, but not what we were looking for.

So I decided to try another batch, this time frying them. My Internet search for recipes was not a difficult one. When frying, all paths lead to Paula Deen or the Neelys. When searching for recipes on the Internet, I usually look at a few recipes and try to arrive at a consensus, then put my spin on it. Paula’s recipe called for slightly thicker slices, fried in vegetable oil and seasoned with her recipe for House Seasoning. The Neelys’ recipe called for peanut oil and was seasoned with ancho chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Both recipes called for frying the chips in 350-degree oil for about three minutes.

I don’t own a deep fryer, so I used a medium-sized saucepan and heated the oil using a digital thermometer. I used a mix of Smart Balance oil and canola because that’s what I had. It took three batches for one potato, but when they were done they looked pretty much like the store-bought chips, and they were crisp. I tested a few seasoning mixes I had on hand and the clear winner was Cajun seasoning.

Fried sweet potato chips, left, were more crisp and colorful than the baked version, right.

The verdict: Since the whole point was to get my son to eat sweet potatoes and he spit out his first taste of the baked version, I probably won’t make those again, though I’ll eat the chips myself. My husband and I loved the fried chips. My son, so far, has not been persuaded to try them. He has been enthusiastically devouring shelled peanuts, however. Woohoo! A legume!

Over the weekend I took advantage of a sunny and unscheduled Saturday afternoon and did what I should do every week, which is go to a nearby farmers market to stock up on fresh vegetables. I went without a list, hoping I would find something there to inspire meals for the next few days. This is the ideal, cheffy way to do it, but recent weeks have been so busy that I’ve been making grocery lists based on a few favorite quick-and-easy meals, grabbing the ingredients from the grocery store and bypassing the farmers market altogether.

Strolling through the familiar, busy aisles in the farmers market section of the Daytona Flea & Farmers Market, I was reminded why it’s worth going a bit out of my way to shop there for produce. While vendors at this market do ship in some foreign items, in case you just have to have asparagus in November, there is also a nice variety of ever-changing local, seasonal produce. Though I’ll often check the Florida Department of Agriculture’s “What’s in Season Now” shopping list before I go, there are usually some surprises. This week, it was a handwritten sign touting locally grown collard greens.

The collard greens were piled high, still on their stalks, tied together in bundles the size of shrubs. I pointed out to the vendor that I live with a Northerner and a 6-year-old, so it was likely that only one out of three family members would eat collards, but she was apparently not going to take pity on me and break up a bunch. They cook way down, she pointed out. I knew that, but cooking down three truckloads of greens into one truckload is still a truckload of greens. I have storage issues.

But I really wanted those collard greens. I’d just read in a story by Elizabeth Brown, M.S., R.D., in the November issue of Oxygen magazine that they are the top leafy green when it comes to lowering cholesterol, a particular concern in our family. They’re also known cancer fighters and are rich in the B vitamin folate, which supports heart health. It has also been a while since I’d challenged my husband to try a new vegetable. It would be a challenge for me, too, since I’d never tried to cook collards before. The vendor put them in a large plastic bag (they were too big to fit in my reusable bag) and I was on my way to cookin’ up a mess of greens.

Collard greens are a nutritional powerhouse. Find them at farmers markets to enjoy now, and freeze some for later.

Oxygen had offered a recipe for Collard Greens with Root Veggies and Salmon, a “clean eating” way to include some of the greens in a healthy diet by steaming them in parchment with the fish and vegetables. But their recipe called for only 6 leaves and I had at least 10 times that. Besides, having grown up eating greens in Arkansas, my natural instincts were telling me there should be pork involved, and my preference was bacon.

A quick search online led me to a recipe for Collard Greens with Bacon at SimplyRecipes.com. Scanning the ingredient list, I knew I had a winner: bacon, onion, garlic, apple cider vinegar and, for my husband, a little hot sauce. Another plus was that the recipe called for simmering the greens in a skillet with the other ingredients just until wilted rather than stewing them for hours. We’re used to eating a lot of steamed and sauteed vegetables and appreciate a little more crunch. In the case of collards, this turned out to be more of a nice chewiness.

If you’d like a vegetarian option, this recipe for Collards Braised in Red Wine, adapted from chef Michael Lomonako, appeared in the Mark Bittman‘s Diner’s Journal in the New York Times. Using a similar technique, it contains olive oil rather than bacon fat, and red wine instead of apple cider vinegar. I plan to try this one next.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d be dealing with, so I decided to tackle the collards as soon as I got home rather than wait until dinnertime. This turned out to be a good plan. After removing the leaves from the stems and washing them, I had enough leaves piled on my kitchen counter to fill a large trash bag. This was an interesting situation. I decided to go ahead and cook the recipe, which would probably cook down a third of the greens. I didn’t, however, have enough ingredients on hand to cook three batches.

I noticed when I sliced the greens into strips for the recipe they took up much less space, so I decided to slice them all into strips. Could I freeze them? Yes, it turns out, you can freeze fresh collards after blanching them first. Here’s how:

The recipe for Collard Greens with Bacon turned out to be delicious. One bite and I was suddenly transported back to my mother’s kitchen, watching her stir a big pot of greens on the stove. To go with them, I decided to make whole-wheat-panko-crusted catfish and sweet potato fries. Now, I am a Southern girl, so I know the catfish should have been coated in seasoned cornmeal and fried, and there should have been cornbread or at least hush puppies with those greens, but I’m a health-conscious Southern girl and am married to a guy who really loves sweet potato fries. Life is full of compromises. However, though we may have compromised on tradition, we didn’t miss a thing when it came to taste or nutrition.